The use of crosslinkable probes in nucleic acid hybridization assays to crosslink to target sequences is demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,967 by K. Yabusaki et al.; compounds are based on furocoumarin (or psoralen) attached to existing polynucleotides (usually through adduct formation) and are satisfactory for many applications. However, the crosslinking group/nucleoside adduct is difficult to synthesize, particularly in large quantities. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,934, Saba et al. describe a photoactivatible nucleoside analogue comprising a coumarin moiety linked through its phenyl ring to the 1-position of a ribose or deoxyribose sugar moiety in the absence of an intervening base moiety. The resulting nucleoside analogue is used as a photo-crosslinking group when inserted into a polynucleotide as a replacement for one or more of the complementary nucleoside bases present in a probe used in hybridization assays.
Nevertheless, new types of compounds that offer additional advantages, such as stability throughout probe synthesis and use, and conformational flexibility, continue to remain desirable.